Donald Trump has once again teased that he might declare a National Emergency for his $5.7billion border wall if the Democrats don't give him what he wants.

On Sunday, Trump tweeted out a quote from Republican Rep Tom McClintock, who has been one of his biggest supporters when it comes to the border wall.

'President is on sound legal ground to declare a national emergency,' the beginning of McClintock's quote in Trump's tweet reads.

'There have been 58 National Emergencies declared since the law was enacted in 1976, and 31 right now that are currently active, so this is hardly unprecedented.'

Donald Trump has once again teased that he might declare a National Emergency for his $5.7billion border wall if the Democrats don't give him what he wants

On Sunday Trump tweeted out a quote from Republican Rep Tom McClintock, who has been one of his biggest supporters when it comes to the border wall

The 1976 law refers to the National Emergencies Act, which defines a national emergency as: 'Any occasion or instance in which, in the determination of the president, federal assistance is needed to supplement State and local efforts and capabilities to save lives and to protect property and public health and safety, or to lessen or avert the threat of a catastrophe in any part of the United States.'

Barack Obama declared a national emergency in 2009 amid the H1N1 swine flu pandemic. And George W Bush declared one in 2001 to give him broad powers following the September 11 terrorist attacks.

If Trump were to declare a national emergency over the border wall, he could activate the same law that Bush did that year - which would allow him to redirect allocated military construction funds for 'military construction projects not otherwise authorized by law'.

Congress can only terminate a declared emergency with a joint resolution.

McClintock hasn't been shy about his desire for the president to declare a national emergency.

'My strong advice to the president is to take the legal authority that he has to reprogram unobligated military construction funds and put them to use securing our borders,' he told Breitbart last week.

'I can't think of anything more important to national defense than the defense of our southern border.'

McClintock (pictured on Thursday) hasn't been shy about his desire for the president to declare a national emergency, saying he 'can't think of anything more important to national defense than the defense of our southern border'

It was nearly word for word what McClintock had said on the House floor two weeks ago as he urged Trump to declare a national emergency for the 'defense of our nation'.

'What is more fundamental to national defense than the integrity of our borders?' he continued.

'Using this authority would not only build the wall, it would avoid the need to meet any demands to further diminish or dilute our current immigration laws.'

'If the next three weeks produces the unreasonable demands and intransigence that we have come to expect from the Democratic leadership, I strongly urge the President to use his existing authority.'

Trump's endorsement of McClintock's words came just hours after he claimed the Democrats wanted another government shutdown in the wake of the ongoing Virginia controversy.

Dem. Gov. Ralph Northam has refused to step down after a yearbook photo emerged of two men dressed in blackface and as a KKK member. Northam has confirmed he is one of the men in the photo. On Sunday he sparked further controversy by referring to the first Africans brought to Virginia in 1619 as 'indentured servants.'

Days after the original scandal, Democratic Attorney General Mark Herring admitted he had worn blackface while dressing as a rapper at a college party in 1980.

On Friday, a second woman accused Lt. Gov. Justin Fairfax of sexual assault.

'It was a very bad week for the Democrats, with the GREAT economic numbers, The Virginia disaster and the State of the Union address,' he tweeted on Sunday.

'Now, with the terrible offers being made by them to the Border Committee, I actually believe they want a Shutdown. They want a new subject!'

Trump slammed Democrats over the political explosion they're facing in Virginia, which saw the party's top three leaders engulfed in career-ending scandals, as he touted his own State of the Union address and the strong U.S. economy.

Trump's endorsement of McClintock's words came just hours after he claimed the Democrats wanted another government shutdown in the wake of the ongoing Virginia controversy

The president spent part of his Sunday morning tweeting new arguments for his border wall ahead of his trip to El Paso on Monday and laying the ground work to blame Democrats should there be a second government shutdown on Friday.

'I don't think the Dems on the Border Committee are being allowed by their leaders to make a deal. They are offering very little money for the desperately needed Border Wall & now, out of the blue, want a cap on convicted violent felons to be held in detention!,' he wrote on Twitter Sunday morning.

His latest round of tweets comes amid reports talks have broken down to prevent a second government shutdown ahead of Friday's deadline.

'The government shutdown is technically still on the table,' acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney told 'Fox News Sunday.'

A group of bipartisan lawmakers are in talks on a border security deal that would prevent a second shutdown from happening.

They are said to be trying to find a number between $1.3 billion and $2 billion that would be acceptable to both sides - the full funding Trump wants versus the $1.3 billion Democrats were originally willing to spend.

Trump alleged Democrats want to make a deal but leadership won't let them and he blamed them for wanting a 'cap on convicted violent felons to be held in detention.'

Acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney, in appearances on 'Fox News Sunday' and 'Meet the Press' (pictured), said Trump can find the rest of his border wall funding else where in the government coffers

Democrats are trying to limit the number of detention beds that the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency would have access to as a way to limit aggressive detention activities by ICE.

'To enhance national security and encourage more efficient immigration enforcement, Democrats have proposed a cap on the number of ICE detention beds associated with interior enforcement. This cap will force the Trump administration to prioritize arresting and deporting serious criminals, not law-abiding immigrants,' a House Democratic aide said of the party's demand.

This demand to cap the number of beds led to the impasse in the talks, The Washington Post reported.

Republican Sen Lindsey Graham, a close Trump ally, said the president will not sign legislation that caps the number of beds.

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'I promise you this. Donald Trump is not going to sign any bill that reduces the number of bed spaces available to hold violent offenders who come across our border. He can't do that. He won't do that. And you can you can take that to the bank. I think,' he said on Fox News Channel's Sunday Morning Futures.

Meanwhile, Mulvaney blamed Democrats for the chaos surrounding the talks while declining to say for certain whether Trump would sign the compromise legislation.

'There's going to be a lot of different moving pieces so I'm not in a position to say the president will absolutely sign or will not sign,' he said on Fox News Sunday.

'Here's what we do know, the president has to sign a piece of legislation in order to keep the government open. He cannot sign anything that they put in - cannot sign everything they put in front of him. If there will be some things that simply we couldn't agree to.'

But, he noted, the president will get his border wall one way or another.

'The president is going to build the wall,' Mulvaney continued.' We'll take as much money as you can give us and then we will go off and find the money someplace else legally in order to secure that southern barrier. But this is going to get built with or without Congress.'

Mulvaney said that doesn't necessarily mean Trump will declare a national emergency to get the full $5.7billion.

'There are certain funds of money he can get to without declaring a national emergency, and other funds that he can only get to after declaring a national emergency,' Mulvaney noted.

'How much good to get without declaring?,' Fox News anchor Chris Wallace asked him.

'That remains to be seen. Let's talk about the whole pot. The whole pot is well north of $5.7billion,' he responded.

'There are other funds of money that are available to him through what we call reprogramming. There is money that he can get at and is legally allowed to spend. And I think it needs to be said again and again: all of this is going to be legal. There are statutes on the books as to how any president can do this.'

The president spent part of his Sunday morning tweeting new arguments for his border wall ahead of his trip to El Paso on Monday

He's complained about Democratic negotiators working on a deal to keep the government open

Mulvaney noted on 'Meet the Press' that if Democrats met the president in the middle on the money, Trump would likely sign the legislation to keep the government open and get the rest of the funds elsewhere.

'You cannot take a shutdown off the table and you cannot take $5.7 [billion] off the table. But if you end up someplace in the middle, yeah, then what you'll probably see is the president say, 'Yeah, okay. And then I'll go find the money someplace else,''' Mulvaney said.

There is growing concern the talks among lawmakers may not come up with a fruitful solution.

The 17 lawmakers on the bipartisan, bicameral border security negotiation team had given themselves an informal deadline of Monday to have a proposal completed, in order to give it time to work its way through the legislative process and to Trump's desk.

But an aide familiar with the talks told The New York Times the lawmakers have stopped talking.